The Edge
by Elfgirloflorien
Summary: After the battle with the Wargs before Helm's Deep, Aragorn has disappeared. Legolas deals with the appearance of his death as the Rohirrim prepare to fight for their lives.


We have gained so much, yet lost immeasurably. Does the loss outweigh the gain? can we even call it gain, when so much has been sacrificed to it? No one could tell, not even the wisest of my kindred. but this I have learned, through many encounters and dangers; the more you gain, the more you have to lose.

When I looked up from my last killing, the battlefire fading from my eyes, he was gone. I scanned the field quickly, then again, believing that my tired gaze must have been sliding away from him, somehow. It was unbelievable that he should not be there, as he had always been there, in all our hunts together. of course he was there.

Here was his horse, blood drying on its' flank, legs kicking in the final throws of death. Heart pounding, I checked the ground for tracks; no sign of him. But only his horse was dead, and riders did survive their horses' falls. Here, a warg ran past. and the damp earth was deeply engraved with a mark: his boot. I followed the warg tracks through the grass, past a dying orc and to the edge of a cliff. I must be mistaken!

I retraced my steps to the dying orc. He laughed with what he knew was his doom, full of malice to the very end. I could not believe in him; his very repulsiveness and fearlessness spoke, no, screamed of the fate of my friend. He held something clutched tightly in his palm, as if it might save him from the abyss he was falling into.

I cannot remember what happened then. Some madness took me, hidden in my Silvan blood. I must have snatched the Evenstar from his hand after his death, and ran to the edge of the cliff. It is a wonder I did not stumble over the brink, so little was I paying attention.

Only the rushing water. The rocks, perilous and sharp. The foaming, rushing water, with no sign of any life whatsoever. Not half deep enough to cushion a fall from this height.

He was gone. My staring eyes did not move as they filled with tears, tears I had not cried since I was little more then a boy. I could not feel anger that he was gone, even fear; I felt only a soft aching wonderment. He could not be gone. not Aragorn. not the young Estel I had watched grow up from a child, toddling around in the garden at Rivendell. Not the boy I had taught to climb trees, to speak to them almost as a wood elf did. He never succeed quite all the way with speaking to trees, but he was the only human I ever knew who could even do it halfway. Not the little boy I played games with, the one I enlisted to help with my pranks on the rest of elvenkind. Not the Estel I helped train in swordplay, along with the Halfelven twins. We gave him many hard hits in those days, but he soon learned to fight back. Not the young man invincibly proud of his first slain orc, who then threw up on the battlefield. Not the Estel I fought with back to back many a time, who did his share of the killing, whether it was orcs or spiders. Not the Aragorn who ran away when he learned of the lineage he considered shameful and who I had to drag back. Not the Aragorn who I watched proudly plight his troth with Arwen. He could not be gone. He was not dead. Not Estel, Aragorn, my brother, my friend. Surely he was still there, somewhere, somehow.

We cannot stay. Theoden will not even bury the dead, they are in such a hurry towards Helm's deep. We must go, and quickly.

I stare one last time into the grim abyss, clutching the Evenstar, Aragorn's Evenstar, in my palm until the impression will never leave it. I calm my rising fears, and with a resolution not to waver I whisper aloud to the sky.

_You're not gone. I believe you will return, to take your place as the Heir of Isildur and King of Gondor, and your place as my friend. Until then I will keep your Evenstar safe beside me as the last thread, a lifeline to you. Return quickly, my friend!_

Turning, I walk away from the cliff, my steps not wavering as I walk away from what _will not_ be the burying place of Aragorn, the last hope for MiddleEarth.


End file.
